Catch up (not ketchup) post

I've got some pics I've been sitting on for too long. It's time to share them.

The snow drift on this sign totally looks like a man's face.


Murder on the streets of Edmonton! This happened the day after I got back from Cuba. I felt like Weegee.


Nancy Grace recently broke the props out to show how the astronaut love triangle should result in someone getting the death penalty, or something.


How cute is my neice?


Saw this at Safeway a while back. When I saw it I was like, "ha ha, you stupid idiots! Those aren't grapefruits!" Hi-larious.


Finally, I'm disappointed in everyone who didn't participate in Iris' caption contest. That means everyone but me. For shame.

Caption contest

Location: WGBH/NOVA office lounge

Amazing Race

One perceived advantage of living in one of the easternmost major metropolitan cities in the US is traveling. Specifically, how easy it should be to go to Europe. Gone are the days of traveling 4 hours to Toronto, and then having to shlep around the airport for 2–3 hours waiting for a connection. Presumably, I can fly straight to many major European cities. Thus my Spring Break trip from Boston to Edinburgh should look like this:



Well, it certainly didn't look like that. Though I feel like I should take the partial blame since I booked my ticket 3 weeks before my trip and I had a limited budget. So my NWA/KLM flight went through Amsterdam on my way there. Okay. That's acceptable. I had to double back a little bit. But the ticket was cheap and Amsterdam isn't that far away from Edinburgh.



What I did not anticipate is the stupid weather and the reality that not many flights go from Amsterdam to US during the day. There is one flight to Boston each day and I missed that because, on my way home, my Edinburgh-Amsterdam got retardedly delayed. No biggie, I thought. Perhaps they can fly me through London or New York, or *sigh*, even Toronto—"Center of the Universe." You know, other east coast hubs that is relatively close to Boston, a east coast city.

Emphasis on "east coast."

What I certainly did not expect is this:



Not only could they not find me a same-day ticket back to the North American continent, they had to fly me through Minneapolis, THEN, to Boston. WTF?!?!?! Can you grasp how retarded this is?!!?! MINNEAPOLIS!!! I think that's closer to Edmonton than to Boston! The plane actually flew on top of Toronto on my way from Minneapolis to Boston. ALSO, since domestic airline carriers are cheap (fuck you, Northwest) there were no in-flight entertainments or meal during that 2 1/2 hour leg. Good thing I have season 2 of Extras on my computer.

Grrr! It took me almost 48 hours to get from Edinburgh to Boston.

Oh, they also didn't pay for my hotel stay in Amsterdam. And no, I didn't go visit any of the coffee shops. I had one change of clothes (because they refused to dig out my checked luggage, citing time and inconvenience as reasons) and smelling like a Boeing 747 seat cushion for the 48 hours was bad enough as is.

In short, traveling sucks. The End.

Why I told Facebook to shove itself up its own ass

Today has been a day of activity. I went to class, then went straight to a comfortable seat in HUB mall, sat down and did something I'd been thinking about for a long time.

I deleted my facebook account.

I didn't like FB when I signed up for it last year. The only reason I joined was that I thought I could make more friends than Chloe and then rub it in her face. Then she became managing editor while I've wallowed in close-to-graduation obscurity for the last six months. I have no idea how many FB friends she currently has, but I'd guess that her numbers hit the triple digit mark a long time ago. In the friend-making contest we were having, she destroyed me. No question about that.

There were a few factors that pushed me over the edge with FB. First, it was the amount of friends that it said I had. Something around 80, I think. That's a lie. I can guarantee you that I don't have 80 friends. I wasn't comfortable with this. What broke the camel's back (translated, the camel's back means my opinion of Facebook) for me though, was FB over the last few weeks. People that I never really hung out with when I went to high school started tracking me down and every time I logged in I would hope that someone else hadn't found me. My FB wall had suddenly become an online version of Christmas time at a Fort Mac bar, where people were having the same forced conversations that you don't want to be having but feel obligated to because you can't find the friends you came with and you're standing face to face with this person from your past: So what are you doing these days? Do you still talk with so and so? Married? Have any kids?

Lastly, while I can't prove it, I'm almost 100% certain that the government was using Facebook to track me and eventually try to kill me.

In sum, the FB account is gonzo. If you want to talk with me, call me or email me. I've got all the free time in the world, now that I'm not checking my FB homepage every ten minutes.